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Our research projects

At any one time, we have around 120 research projects making discoveries across the UK. Each of these projects is only possible thanks to the generous support of our members, donors and local groups

Every project is reviewed by experts and approved by our research committee and our panel of people living with diabetes. So you're supporting research of the highest scientific quality, led by researchers with the skills and experience to succeed.

Your support of our research projects means we can keep tackling the complications of diabetes and bring us one step closer to a cure.

Find a research project

Use the search tool to discover research taking place in your local area, or choose a subject or type of diabetes you’re interested in.

Each project page showcases the details of the research, and if you find a research project you could really get behind, you can support it in lots of different ways.

Infections in foot ulcers can be hard to treat and don’t always respond to antibiotics. If this happens, they can result in amputations or sepsis.

Dr Freya Harrison wants to find new types of antibiotics that could be used to effectively treat infections in foot ulcers. In the future, this could improve the quality of people with diabetes’ lives and reduce the number of amputations.

Professor Colhoun hopes to understand how blood glucose control in Type 1 diabetes changes over time in different groups of people.These insights could help us find ways to improve blood glucose levels in people with Type 1 diabetes.

People with diabetes are at a higher risk of developing kidney disease, but we don’t fully understand how it develops. Professor Matthew Bailey wants to study a specific molecule, called P2X7R, to see if it’s responsible for the narrowing of the small blood vessels at the early stages of kidney disease. This research would help us to better understand how kidney disease develops, so we can find new ways to treat it.

People with Type 2 diabetes can use drugs called SGLT2 inhibitors to help them manage their blood glucose levels. But unanswered questions remain around how effective and safe they are in real life. Dr Thomas Caparrotta will study large amounts of data from people using these drugs in the real world, to provide important evidence on their effects. This will help doctors and people with Type 2 diabetes to make decisions about the best treatment for them.

The community of bacteria that lives in our gut is different in people with and without Type 2 diabetes. Dr Astrid Hauge-Evans will find out if a diet high in wholegrains could alter this bacteria in people with Type 2 diabetes, and in turn protect insulin-producing cells. This could help us find a new diet-based treatment to improve the health of people living with Type 2 diabetes.

Flash Glucose Monitoring gives people with diabetes a simple and painless way to monitor their blood glucose levels. But not everyone who would benefit has access to this life-changing technology. Dr Lalantha Leelarathna will compare the impact and costs of Flash to finger pricks tests in people with Type 1 diabetes. This will provide important evidence that could help make Flash more widely available on the NHS, to transform the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes.

Retinopathy is an eye complication of diabetes and can lead to blindness. Current treatments for retinopathy only address the end-stages of the disease, when the eye is already significantly damaged. Professor Curtis and his research team want to test a new drug that could slow or stop retinopathy earlier on in its development.

People with Type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, but we don’t know why. Dr Mudher believes that Type 2 diabetes could have a negative effect on a protein in the brain, called ‘Tau’. She wants to find out more about this interaction to see if it can be stopped, to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in people with Type 2 diabetes.

Lipodystrophy is a condition that causes fat to be stored differently in the liver, muscle and pancreas. This can lead to a form of Type 2 diabetes that is difficult to manage with diet. Dr Justin Rochford and his team want to investigate if medications that are used to treat the two conditions separately could be combined to manage this difficult form of Type 2 diabetes more easily.

Dr David Long and his colleagues are investigating the function of kidney lymphatic vessels in diabetic kidney disease. This will help us to understand whether targeting lymphatic vessels could be a novel treatment strategy for diabetic kidney disease.

FayeRiley
Mon, 21/08/2017 - 11:08Thu, 01/08/2019 - 00:23/research/our-research-projects/london/lymphatics-a-new-treatment-target-for-kidney-disease-in-people-with-diabetesLymphatics: a new treatment target for kidney disease in people with diabetes?